Former agriculture ministers suspected in EUR 1.4 million embezzlement

Public prosecutors for organized crime and corruption have launched an investigation against people suspected of embezzling public funds, abusing office authorizations in public procurement procedure.

“The four persons, in their capacity as ministers of agriculture, are suspected of signing fraudulent agricultural land-lease contracts. Such contracts were not terminated despite the fact that lessee (tenant-farmer) made no payments to the lessor (the state). As many as 584 flawed contracts on lease of state-owned farming land across the country had been signed, thereby inflicting 88.467.607 Denars (over 1.4 million euro) damage to the national budget,” the prosecutors said.

Former ministers of agriculture Aco Spasenovski and MIhail Cvetkov, as well as former deputy minister of agriculture Kristijan Delev were arrested by police Friday morning in a series of raids.

The fourth suspect in the land fraud probe, Ljupco Dimovski, incumbent Member of Parliament, is still at large.